Regular Guy

Author notes

1-13: The Power of Rock & Roll!

sewerman

on Jan. 21, 2008

I have been absent from doing Regular Guy for several months. There are a few reasons for this. One is that real life tends to get in the way and RG slips down my "to-do" list although many weekends went by when I just thought "I should be drawing." I knew exactly what this strip was going to be and am pleased it turned out as well as it did (though I can't tell you how much more post-production was needed than other RG strips!) By some astonishing coincidence I was watching the Bill & Ted movies on the weekend, which have a similar philosophy, and that motivated me to finally move forward, I suppose.

I put it off because I had a dilemma. I love the idea that rock & roll is what saves the world (even if this is an inaudible comic strip,) but had a mental debate as to what song could save the world. I involed a few other people and we kicked around a few potential candidates. I had some criteria: It had to be a powerful classic rock song or at least a well-established one from bygone years. It would ideally be of larger-than-life scope and able to be played on guitar/bass/drums. I was also going more for power chords than Van Halen-esque fretwork. Some of the candidates were, in no particular order:

Rolling Stones - Satisfaction
Beastie Boys - Sabotage
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Freebird
Stooges - Search and Destroy
The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again
Europe - The Final Countdown

As well as nearly every song of the Classic Rock age, and some metal and grunge.

The last two include synth, and I ultimately went with a song that is heavily synth anyway because the Who used to play it with a pre-recorded synch live anyway, so there's no reason the aliens couldn't replicate that. I went with Baba O'Riley because once, long ago, I was riding in a friend's car and he had a busted speaker. Baba O'Riley came on and he took a hard left turn and suddenly the speaker was in perfect working order. He laughed "Thank you Who!" I've always thought it was one of the best songs ever recorded, and since then it's had this unreal quality about it, making it a perfect candidate.

This was the first time I ever seriously drew characters playing instruments. Worried it was going to suck, I studied each player closely based on a model - Reg is based losely on a photo of Joe Perry, Anja on Kim Gordon (is there anything sexier than a gorgeous babe weilding a bass guitar?) and Nolan is Ringo Starr. I know Reg doesn't have a strap on his guitar, or a microphone, but I liked the effect anyway and left them out.

ANYWAY, as the usual spiel goes: Regular Guy is a very rarely-done strip that I do as a side-project to Redneck Comics, which updates far more frequently but not so much these days. Thank you very much for reading!